


Paper and Ink

by ix_tab



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Spoilers, F/M, M/M, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-30
Updated: 2016-06-19
Packaged: 2018-06-05 10:31:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6701296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ix_tab/pseuds/ix_tab
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Letters to and from fellow warriors, in the aftermath of war</p>
<p>After the dust settles, everyone is thinking their own private thoughts. And some people put pen to paper, trying to reach out to new friends, ex friends, ex enemies, and old loves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Spider scratchings: a message of concern from Rhodey to Peter Parker

**Author's Note:**

> So! This fic is characters writing letters to one another, after the civil war. I'll add new letters as I write them, I've got a few planned, as I work through my own feelings and thoughts about the film.

The letter was given to Peter by a stern looking man in a suit that was almost too boring to be real.

 He pushes it into Peter’s hands as he walks to school and when Peter turns to ask what it was, he’s gone, like a ghost.

 A mundane ghost. His least favourite sort.

 It's simply addressed “ the Spider” and Peter feels fear deep and dark inside, for the 30 seconds it had taken to stealth his way up to a roof to read it.

 He was going to be late for Algebra, and he didn’t care.

 

_Dear Mr. Parker,_

 

_Hey kid. This is Lieutenant Colonel James Rhodes. War Machine might be more familiar._

 

_But since you’ve fought alongside me, call me Jim._

 

_First of all, I owe you an apology. We all do. Tony owes you one that he will most likely never give._

 

_If I, if any of us had known how young you were, there was no chance we would have let Tony bring you in._

 

_It’s not fair to you, and you can bet that he knew that and that’s why he kept us in the dark. Still, no excuse._

 

_I’ve known that man for longer then you’ve been alive, I should have suspected he’d do something like this._

 

_That being said, you did admirably. You have the makings of something big._

 

_I’m not going to tell you what to do, I am not that sort of hypocrite._

 

_And I’ve spent most of my life being talked into questionable actions by Tony Stark._

 

_But all I ask is that, next time, please. When someone comes in dangling that golden apple, if they need immediate response? Say no. Ask for more time._

 

_You have us now, you can contact us for input, and the decision is still yours. I chose my side, and I have to stand with it._

 

_And you do as well, and you will again. All I want for you, for all people in our situations is to seek clarity and consider all the options._

 

_Good luck, kid with whatever you do._

 

_If Tony forgets to pay for your suit, send me a line on the below email address and I’ll get his ass into gear._

 

_Yours, Jim Rhodes_

 

Peter carefully folds the letter into his pocket and stares up at the wispy clouds sweeping across the sky. 

He thinks about the streaks of light and flame and smoke from Iron Man’s and War Machine’s suits. 

He thinks about Captain America, no Steve. It was Steve from Brooklyn’s brilliant smile, and the horrifying determination in his wide blue eyes. 

It's cold on this roof, and he's not sure if it's the weather putting the chill into his bones. 

He’s gonna nap through Algebra on this roof. Maybe even Chemistry.

 

He needs a little bit of quiet.


	2. It's a winter wonderland - Steve can't stop writing Bucky lovenotes

Steve stares at the shining glass of Bucky’s self imposed prison. It’s been 35 days, and the Wakandan doctors are beyond anything Steve’s experienced before. Their technology might as well be magic, like Thor and all of Asgard. 

He laughs a little, under his breath. The future, the present, whatever this was, just keeps getting away from him. It doesn’t matter.

Bucky is his past, present and future, and he’s not moving until Bucky is ready to walk with him.

He goes back to the 6th letter he’s written to Bucky since this began. He’s making use of the sketchpad T’challa offered him on the third day of his near constant vigil. 

“A friend of yours told me you might need distraction. She also said to tell Barnes ‘Сладких снов!’, and then told me that my Russian pronunciation was very crisp”, T’challa had said, kind and serious, every inch the caring king.

Steve envies T’challa a little and not at all. He’s carried a nation symbolically before, and now he cannot. There was a sureness there that he didn’t realise he’d miss before it was gone.

And yet, there was a weight too, and T’challa shoulders his. Steve has had his yoke lifted for the first time in decades and he’s not sure what to do with this lightness.

So he draws and he writes.

 

_Buck,_

_I was never very good at letters. Remember you writing up that story for me so I wouldn’t get whipped the next day at school? And then, I drew you pictures of your sister to give for her birthday, because we’d spent any money we could get on comics._

 

_I would have drawn them for free. She was my family too._

 

(Steve sketches a quick sillouhete of Rebecca on the page. He can’t forget her, cheeky grin, bright as a button. He knows she lived well. He hopes Bucky learned that, in the time they were apart.)

 

_I want to be funny, but I don’t know if I can. We’ve cried enough, but I think about laughing, and nothing seems right when you are right here, and you can’t even roll your eyes at me._

 

_I don’t know if I’ll give you this, if I’m writing it so it just gets me out of my head. I don’t want to burden you more. You’ve..Bucky, you’ve carried so much._

 

_I missed you and I made my peace, I left you behind in the past._

 

_And then you appeared again, and the peace? It didn’t matter._

 

_I regret a lot of things. I don’t regret some things I should, maybe._

 

_But for you, I’d do a lot of things that would have them rip the stars and stripes off my back forever._

 

_Maybe that’s ok._

 

_The doctor in charge of the project tells me that you can’t hear, and don’t dream like this, and maybe that’s better._

 

_Dreams are bad for people like you and me._

 

_Honestly, maybe I’m assuming too much, maybe I don’t have the right because I put myself in the firing line, but you were dragged there._

 

_But when you wake up, I’ll be here. And there’s a space for you in this world, Bucky._

 

_There’s a space for you and me._

 

_Love, Steve_

Steve finishes the letter, breathes deep, eyes closed, and then turns to look at Bucky, cold, unmoving. Peaceful even, and that makes Steve so angry and sad that he could choke. There are people out in the world still that did this to Bucky, and he doesn’t know where he’d stop if he found them. A thought to linger on at night, to join the thousands of others.

“I owe you a dance too, Sargent. Don’t go skipping out on me,” Steve says, finding a smile, watching it reflect in the cool glass of the tank. 

Bucky sleeps well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Natasha tells Bucky to 'sleep well'


	3. Not All Feathers Fall - Sam makes a plan with Nat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam's no caged songbird. He wants open skies, and he's prepared for what that means.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a while! This idea very much piggybacks off the excellent fic [Who takes care of you?](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7184054) by [hupsoonheng](http://archiveofourown.org/users/hupsoonheng/pseuds/hupsoonheng).
> 
> when I read that I finally had a break through on how I wanted to make this letter work.

Hey Nat,

I'm out.

I mean, I'm in, in a general sense, I'm always in, friend and family and you are all my people. I'm just.

I won't sit here and wait for the world to summon us back

It's like, my grief? it's young. it's not even a decade old. and I gotta move, or it might drown me. I need to keep swimming. I'm not hiding from it, but when I sit, I dwell. I get poisoned.

When I'm moving, when I'm out there, it makes sense. I understand why I have to feel this way, and why Riley would, if he knew the future, he would have made the same choices.

I make my peace every day, I breathe, I move forward. 

Right now I'm grounded and it feels like weights against my legs, pulling me under.

And I look at Steve, pressing his face against the cold glass, watching Barnes sleepin like Snow White...

Nat, that grief is old. Old as the blood and bones frozen in that tank, waiting for a miracle.

it's a part of Steve, of Barnes. And maybe it gives Steve the strength to wait.

But I know myself, I have to. And my wings are feeling clipped right now.

I know you are out there.  
I know Fury is too, that masterminding bastard.

Count me in. I'm not stagnating, and I'm no ones to command right now. Falcon's choosing his own flight path, and it's not about waiting to be summoned back by Stark, or worse.

I've followed Steve, the man, not the shield, through hell and he always came back to save me.

I know you've done the same.

Maybe when it's time, no matter what, he'll come follow us into the sky. Bringing Barnes with him, no doubt. Probably be nice to meet the man, once we aren't in combat.

God, this is too long, and it's gonna be a pain in the ass for even T'challa's fancy computer tech to encrypt. You'll get it though.

I need a partner, and a cause. You work wonders alone, and in a team you fill in every gap.

Come on, girl. Let's descend from on high and bring succour and mercy and a few cracked ribs where needed. 

Sam

(reply back within 30 seconds on Sam's supposedly uncrackable Wakandan issue ear comm frequency, in morse code: Suit up)


End file.
